Insight
by BMT and SuperMoose
Summary: Toph has some about Zuko. By BlackMarketTrombones.


A/N: I wrote this whole thing thinking friendship, then immediately remembered what fandom I was writing for, which made me wonder what the cutesy abbreviation for Zuko/Toph is? Tuko? Zoph? Maybe it's Toko, which, given then vowel sound in Toph, would end up sounding like 'taco' and be amazing. Does it even exist? (Who am I trying to kid? This is _Avatar_.) Anyway, this is not intended to be Taco, but you can see that if you want.

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"Insight"

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It's almost painful to watch him at first.

She's an earthbender, and her mentality is as simple and straightforward as her element. She is what she is, and though she's grown accustomed to Aang's lighthearted whimsy and Sokka and Katara's rhythmic ebb and flow, she cannot understand Zuko's flickering temperament, how he can flare up or die down in a heartbeat. She can attribute that to cultural differences and move on, but more unfathomable to her is the discrepancy between who he is and who he appears to be.

She knows what smoke is. It's a hot, dry breeze on her face, an ashy stench, the acrid taste of dust and death, and according to others, a heavy miasma that obstructs sight and obscures vision. But smoke cannot blind her any further and has only ever been an annoyance, not irritating enough to distract from the crackling flames that feel so much more real. Fire is substance and smoke is shadow. Zuko is Zuko and not what he tries to seem.

When he speaks, it is with the confidence and authority of a prince, and she wonders how anyone can believe he isn't terrified. She'd noticed his unmistakable hesitancy the moment he set foot in the Western Air Temple—heart pounding rapidly, breathing shallow and quick, center of balance shifted back as if battling the urge to retreat—and had immediately decided that this intruder, whoever he was, did not come to do harm. She wonders, sometimes, what brand of courage it takes to stride into the den of your enemies knowing the last thing you can do is fight. But that is in the past and he's part of the group now, at least nominally, and all the obvious signs of unease are hidden from sight, but not her.

His is the room adjacent to hers and she can feel every move he makes at night as she lies ensconced in stone. Often, he paces—quick, anxious steps and sharp turns that keep her awake with him until late in the night. Sometimes he stands still, trembling with some pent-up frustration or fear, and when she sleeps she dreams of coals smoldering amongst ashes. More rarely, he sits with his back against the wall between them and breathes—deep, steady breaths—and murmurs words she can't hear and isn't meant to. At these times, she likes to sit and mirror him and feel his heartbeat through the stone until they both fall asleep.

The others mostly avoid him.

She's not sure if they even realize it. They act fairly normally—though Katara's heart rate quickens and she shifts subtly into a not-quite battle stance—but their footsteps just…flow away from him, like a stream where it meets a stone. Oddly enough, Sokka seems the most accepting of him and Katara the least, but they are all clearly—to her, at least—mistrustful of him to some extent. She tries to imagine if it was _Azula_ who approached them offering peace, who she wouldn't _know_ whether or not to trust and so probably wouldn't. It unsettles her, makes her understand better why they act this way, but Zuko is not his sister. She refuses to consider that he's fooling her like Azula has proven she can; no one can lie so convincingly, so consistently, and for so long to her.

He seems to avoid them too, but she suspects it's less that he dislikes them and more that he's incredibly awkward around them. He leans casually against a pillar and speaks with believable nonchalance, but she can see him shifting subtly from foot to foot, can feel his tightly coiled muscles and anxiously pounding heartbeat and minute flinching at Katara's honeyed poison and Sokka's constant suspicion and Aang's inadvertent cruelty.

"You know," she says to him once, after watching him hover uneasily on the fringe, "you're nowhere near as good at lying as your sister, but you're still pretty good."

He's startled and confused, possibly because she's initiated a conversation with him, but he sounds casually ironic when he says, "That would be considered a compliment in the Fire Court, though it would be worded differently."

Katara takes the opportunity to mutter something derogatory just loud enough to be heard, and he shrugs against the stone pillar.

"It's politics," he says, and his voice carries none of the shame and uncertainty she knows he's feeling. "I figure it's about the same wherever you go."

She wonders how Katara can not see how much and how easily she hurts him.

She mentions to him once, when it's early and the others are still sleeping and she's only awake because she felt him stirring against the thin wall between them, that she thinks Katara really needs to learn how to let go of a grudge, and she doesn't understand at first the hitch in his breathing.

"I hunted them," he says after a moment, and even his voice sounds cautious and unsure and maybe even hopeful. "Chased them relentlessly, dogged their every footstep, spent every waking moment planning how to catch up to them and capture him for no reason other than my own selfishness and pride. I made myself what everyone hates and fears about the Fire Nation, threatened their hopes, their lives, their freedom… I stood before them at my best and at my worst and was always the same." She felt him slouching down and hunching inward. "All I've ever been to them, all I'd ever tried to be, was something to run from. Something to fear. So no, I don't think it's so strange that she still hates me."

Unsaid was his astonishment that they'd been willing to give him a chance at all.

She groans. "Don't be dumb, Zuko," she says flatly. "You're one of us, and Sugar Queen's drama isn't helping anybody."

He doesn't need to say anything for her to know that he's grateful, and maybe he understands that, but he still tries. "I, uh… Toph, I—"

She cuts him off with a dismissive wave. "Don't mention it, Sparky."

"No," he persists. "I— I don't—" A breath, then the words tumble out in a rush, as if they're burning his tongue. "It's hard, trying to believe in yourself when no one else does either, and I—"

"I said to can it," she interrupts again, and he falls silent, heart beating rapidly. "I get it. Really. And I like you. Even that stuff you were saying about before, it's like…" She trails off, struggling to find a way to convey to him what _is_.

"You're like a landslide," she says eventually. "Deadly, powerful… Unstoppable. Or maybe you're more like a wildfire, I dunno." She shrugs, feeling awkward trying to explain what—to her, at least—is obvious. "There's good things and bad things and all of them are you. Zuko is Zuko, nothing more, nothing less. Though I could do without all the smoke."

He understands implicitly what she's talking about. "More people die by smoke than fire," he says softly, and she really wishes the others knew how to see as well as she does. "Fire's straightforward, honest, at least, when it kills you, but smoke destroys from the inside out." A pause, then more quietly: "I've had plenty of smoke, and not nearly enough flame."

She scoots over a bit so she's right up next to him, and he only stiffens for a moment. "I don't like smoke. Too much like that sister of yours. Don't like the way it smells or tastes or feels, but I know it doesn't matter. It's the _fire_ that's important, because it can get along fine by itself but smoke _needs_ it to even exist. I don't know much about seeing, but I've heard them—" she jerks her thumb back toward their sleeping companions "—talk about how smoke makes it hard, can even block its fire from sight." She shrugs again. "Guess it's jealous it'll never be that free." Zuko listens very closely, and she feels a strange flush of pride at being so trusted by one for whom that is difficult. "I can't see anyway, so smoke doesn't bother me much, but the others get nervous when what they've always had and relied on gets taken away. They're only comfortable when the fire burns enough for them to see through the smoke." She pats him on the shoulder, awkwardly—because neither of them is very good at this sort of thing—but sincerely. "I believe in you, Zuko."

And neither of them needs to say anything else.


End file.
